Re: Major Swedish newspaper: The Chernobyl catastrophe

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

Björn,

I have not read this article since I have not enough money to subscribe to
Swedish newspapers, though I really would need to, in order to keep my
Swedish up.....

I do not react on anything like this in Austrian papers. It is useless. In
the many years I followed (had to follow) the news I have read all kind of
numbers from zero to infinity. No, it is not correct, it is from 31 (the
fire brigade) to almost infinity. Do you really think that the public
cares, whether there were 7 000, 50 000, 100 or whatever number of victims?
It was "a great disaster" - this is enough. In the news I read that until
now, 3pm, 13 people have died in traffic this weekend. I read that in
different earthquakes, mud slides, inundations hundreds, thousands and tens
of thousand people have died. So what about 7 000 victims? For the common
population this is just another number, which cannot be associated with
anything really experienced - or has anybody seen 7 000 dead corpses
somewhere? This is something which seems to be far beyond any imagination -
at least it is beyond  m y  imagination. Therefore it is not  r e a l !
Putting numbers there is obviously a kind of play - the higher the number
in the headlines the higher the sale of the newspaper. But this maybe
related to the square root of the number or most probably even less. 

The higher the number of victims put forward by the government, the higher
the probability that foreign countries will pay for erection of new power
plants, for stabilisation of the sarcophargus, for relief funds. 

Come on, be realistic. I will repeat again and again, that nuclear power
and radiation protection is hardly related to science any more, but rather
to economics, political influence and mass media presence considerations.
Nevertheless I urge radiation protection professionals to act in a
responsible manner and in such a way, as if all these obstacles would not
exist.

Best regards,

Franz

Jag undrar, om det finns svenska tidningar on-line? Kanske det kunde hjälpa
mig at inte glömma svenskan!


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at


Office:
Hofrat Dr. Franz Schoenhofer
Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management
Radiation Protection Department (BMLFUW I/8 U)
Radetzkystr. 2
A-1031 Vienna
AUSTRIA

phone: -43-1-71172-4458
fax: -43-1-7122331

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